python3 imaplib search function encoding

Question

Can someone point me out how to properly search using imaplib in python. The email server is Microsoft Exchange - seems to have problems but I would want a solution from the python/imaplib side. https://github.com/barbushin/php-imap/issues/128

I so far use:

import imaplib
M = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(host_name, port_name)
M.login(u, p)
M.select()
s_str = 'hello'
M.search(s_str)

And I get the following error:

>>> M.search(s_str)
('NO', [b'[BADCHARSET (US-ASCII)] The specified charset is not supported.'])

You may also want to give IMAPClient a go. It takes care of much of the search encoding aspects for you if you pass search criteria as a unicode string. Project: https://github.com/mjs/imapclient ; Relevant docs: http://imapclient.readthedocs.io/en/stable/#imapclient.IMAPClient.search — Menno Smits, Apr 12 '17 at 22:54

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 07 '21 at 11:02

search takes two or more parameters, an encoding, and the search specifications. You can pass None as the encoding, to not specify one. hello is not a valid charset.

You also need to specify what you are searching: IMAP has a complex search language detailed in RFC3501§6.4.4; and imaplib does not provide a high level interface for it.

So, with both of those in mind, you need to do something like:

search(None, 'BODY', '"HELLO"')

or

search(None, 'FROM', '"HELLO"')

python3 imaplib search function encoding

1 Answers1